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Smuggling the Renaissance
The Illicit Export of Artworks Out of Italy, 1861-1909
Leiden, Brill, 2020
The work
that Joanna Smalcerz has just published is, without doubt, a work of great courage.
It takes a lot of courage, in fact, to tackle a difficult issue like how Italian
artworks were smuggled abroad in the final decades of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. The facts that emerge are, obviously, the most striking,
those that attracted the attention of the newspapers and the public opinion, but
also of politicians and art world operators. There is little doubt, in my view,
that those events were just the tip of the iceberg; however, there is no way to
measure in quantitative terms developments which were by nature clandestine.
The choice of dates, of course, is not accidental. It goes from 1861, the year
of birth of the Kingdom of Italy, in which the new legislator decided to procrastinate the rules to protect heritage in force in the individual states of the old regime, pending a new law that would regulate the matter for the whole national
territory, and 1909, when the so-called 'Rosadi law' was finally approved, filling
that regulatory gap (the previous 'Nasi law' of 1902 having proved
ineffective). During those forty-eight years all and the contrary happened, not
only because of the chronic instability of the Italian governments which rarely
remained in office for longer than a year. The author's analysis is naturally
based on archival research and, in particular, on the widely documented
business relations between Stefano Bardini (1836-1922), a very famous Tuscan
antiquarian based in Florence (still proverbially known as 'the prince of
antiquarians') and Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929), par excellence 'the director
of Berlin museums' in Wilhelminian Germany (Bode's career began in 1872 – one
year after German unification – when he was appointed assistant curator in the
sculpture department of the Royal Museums of Berlin). From those papers emerge
facts, partly already known and partly not, which show that both were habitually
engaged in completely illegal behaviour (I think Ms Smalcerz rightly spoke of
white-collar crimes) [1]. Starting from the Bardini - Bode relationship, the
analysis actually broadened and involved actors who must be viewed from three
different perspectives. First, the collectors, whether they acted on behalf of
museums or for themselves (think of German and American billionaires such as
Adolf von Beckerath (1834-1915), John Pierpoint Morgan (1837-1913) and Isabella
Stewart Gardner (1840-1924)). Second, the intermediaries, i.e. antique dealers
such as Bardini, but also the great connoisseurs who advised and acted on
behalf of their wealthy customers (Bode himself led the purchases of many
Berlin billionaires; on the American front it is enough to remember Bernard
Berenson (1865-1959) and his wife Mary (1864-1945)). And, third and finally,
lesser-known personalities, like those we today would call 'public officers'.
They included figures such as Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823-1896), at the top of the General Directorate for Antiquities and Fine Arts, dependent on the Ministry of
Education. Fiorelli (and likewise Adolfo Venturi) tried to limit, in the
absence of modern legislation, the elusive or subversive behaviours due to
which the Italian heritage ended up illegally crossing the borders of the
peninsula.
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| The froncover of 'Stefano Bardini «principe degli antiquari». Prolegomenon to a biography', by Anita Fiderer Moskowitz, Florence, Centro Di, 2015 |
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| Wilhelm von Bode (1920) Source: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/bode-wilhelm-von-10-12-1845-kunsthistoriker-news-photo/541040437 |
Selected cases of illegal export
Naturally, it would be impossible to recall here all the cases presented in the volume. Suffice it to remember, however, that the author traced in great detail the events related to the illicit exportation of Botticelli's frescoes rediscovered in Florence, in Villa Lemmi, in 1873 and sold by Bardini to the Louvre in 1882; or, again, those related to the sale of the bust of the so-called Duchess of Urbino (today attributed to a pupil of Desiderio da Settignano, at the time considered to be Donatello's) from the Roman Barberini collection, also sold by Bardini to Berlin in 1887.
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| Sandro Botticelli, A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts, about 1486, Paris, Louvre Museum Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons |
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| Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman, about 1486, Paris, Louvre Museum Source: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons |
In both cases Bardini circumvented the law by setting up fictitious sales to foreign buyers in Italy. The buyers were actually figureheads, who would hardly be prosecuted once the works exited the Italian borders. In reality, they were recruited on purpose by the real buyers of the works of art. Bardini let them sign, in the contracts, that they had been informed that the export was forbidden. On his part, he contractually declined any responsibility in case of non-compliance with the prohibition. In the case of the Botticellis, in essence, everything went smoothly. To the contrary, as to the bust taken from Palazzo Barberini, the reaction of State authorities, with interrogations through letters rogatory, made it possible to highlight the criminal behaviour of both the antiquarian and Bode. The risk of a conviction was very high and would have been profoundly 'damaging' to the honourability of the antique dealer and the German connoisseur (who, in fact, was not formally accused) if a providential acquittal had not occurred for the expiry of the terms at the end of 1890.
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| Follower of Desiderio da Settignano, Princess of Urbino, about 1465, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Bode Museum Source: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons |
Indeed, unfortunately there were hundreds of
cases. In one of the most interesting, and even amusing, sections of the work, the
author reviewed the various ways in which products officially or potentially
subject to export restrictions were smuggled abroad. The most banal one (but
probably the most widespread) was the corruption of the officials in charge
of issuing export permits and / or customs agents at the border. A very common
practice was also the replacement of the contents of the packaging once the
seal that allowed the works to be taken out of Italy was affixed (in essence: a
work of no value was presented to the Export Office, a license was obtained when
seals were affixed, then the package was re-opened so as not to break them and
the smuggled artwork was inserted). The methods of smuggling depended, of
course, on the size of the work that had to be brought out of the national
territory. It is no coincidence that one of the elements that had caused the
most discussion when Botticelli's frescoes were secretly transferred to France
was that they measured about two meters by three meters and that no one had
understood how it was possible even to get them out of the Florentine palace
without anyone noticing. In principle, in the case of small dimensions, the use
of suitcases and trunks with double bottoms was quite frequent to try to evade
any checks at the barrier. Mary Berenson was very proud of having sent the
Annunciation by Piermatteo d’Amelia to England for the collection of Isabella
Stewart Gardner, hiding it in the double bottom of a trunk (the painting was
102 x 114) filled with dolls (p. 163). Incidentally, we cannot fail to mention
that, in the opposite direction, Vincenzo Peruggia brought Leonardo's Mona Lisa back
from France to Italy in the background of a suitcase in 1913. In fewer cases, the embassies of
foreign countries and the Vatican itself were involved (as their diplomatic
baggage could not be inspected). But the phenomenon was truly varied and, at
times, took on the contours of a veritable pochade:
for instance, when in 1895 the Canessa brothers, Neapolitan antique dealers, wanted
to export antiquities to France, organized an amateur cycling race (I
assume one of the very first) from Sanremo to Nizza and all one hundred
participants (all conniving) were given an art work to hide under the shirt (p.
167).
It should be noted, however, that in the face
of export restrictions, individual nations also included duties for the
importation of works of art. In 1883, for example, the United States provided
for the payment of a tax rate of 30% on the value of these works for their
importation. Here too, of course, practices developed to avoid paying the import
duty: one of the most frequent was the simple presentation to customs of a
false inventory with the values of the purchase prices artificially lowered and
the attributions of the paintings misrepresented with references to unknown
painters.
The historical context
During the second part of the nineteenth
century the idea of the Renaissance as an era laying the foundations for the
full affirmation of individual freedom saw the triumph in Europe. On a cultural
level, works such as the Civilization of the Renaissance in
Italy by Jacob Burckhardt (1860), preceded by his Cicerone,
which had at least a dozen editions in a few decades, marked the birth of a
narrative imposing the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (with particular
reference to Florence) to the interest of collectors, of Italian amateurs, and art
historians. Since the mid-1850s (therefore from before the unification of
Italy) the large museums started operating in the art market, starting with the
National Gallery of Charles Lock Eastlake, engaged in a program of setting up
artistic collections that would fully make the idea of the development of
Italian art in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Thereby, the museums
wanted to confer prestige on their nations following the example of the Louvre.
The British purchasing policy continued at least until the 1860s, and was also
supported by strong domestic demand from the local gentry and nobility, which
gave birth to dream collections in their respective stately homes. In the final
decades of the nineteenth century, however, things changed and the great
agricultural depression affected the income of the landowners (i.e. the
aristocracy) both in terms of annual yield and in terms of the value of the
assets. It should not be forgotten that, in 1894, an 8% inheritance tax on
inheritance transfers was introduced in England. England suddenly went from
being a great importer of works of art to a great exporter of the same. What took
the name of 'Great Exodus' [2] began;
the artworks were then suddenly travelling to the countries of the 'new rich',
in particular Germany and the United States.
And it is fundamentally to German and American
collecting that the author’s analysis is aimed at. Wilhelmian Germany
immediately put in place an aggressive acquisition policy that found its most
talented interpreter in Wilhelm von Bode. It was about building the identity of
a nation, both through the recovery of German medieval art and through the use
of a common visual language; that language was in fact borrowed from the
Italian Renaissance. Not too many scruples were made on the methods used to
achieve the goal, as long as no scandals broke out; smuggling was quietly
practiced by Bode and the Berlin museums. Allow me, at this point, to make an
observation: the practice of illegally transferring Italian works of art abroad
was centuries old, yet it had never crossed limits. Surely these limits were respected in the National Gallery's season of museum acquisitions. If British
private collecting weren't afraid to get their hands dirty, men like Eastlake,
who acted in the interest of the Victorian Empire, always made full compliance
with local law as a condition in their negotiations and made payment of the
works conditional on the fact that the seller obtained the export permit. Any
form of contraband was strictly excluded. [3]
In the American case, instead than a specific
government-funded museum acquisition campaign, what was crucial was the wish of
'new' billionaires to display their richness. Some of them - as Ms Smalcerz wrote
rightly - considered themselves, in fact, the new Medici, merchants who had
made a fortune and, thanks to it, became patrons of the arts and consumers of
luxury goods. The strong American and German demand, in any case, explains the
surge in the prices of Italian works of art, in a no-holds-barred competitive
process, the affirmation in Italy of highly talented and unscrupulous antiques
dealers and, ultimately, the frantic and almost always failed attempts of the
Italian State to block exports.
The Italian legal system
One thing must be made clear: even the new-born
Italian state needed to place a common cultural language at the foundation of
its unity which was identified, in fact, in the Renaissance; but, compared to
Germany or the United States, there was a big difference: the country abounded
in works, but did not have the money to keep them. If I may make a criticism to
Ms Smalcerz, I would have insisted more on this point. The budget of the new-born
Italian state was affected by the contingent expenses of the wars (not to
forget the Third War of Independence of 1866 and the conquest of Lazio and Rome
in 1870), but more generally by a state of economic backwardness that was a
reflection of the pre-unification situation. Thus, for example, in 1866, authorities
imposed the forced circulation of banknotes without gold or silver-backing,
which as a direct consequence led to the hoarding of metal money and the
devaluation of paper money. Moreover, in 1869, they introduced the infamous tax
on cereals to raise cash; it would be abolished only fifteen years later, after
many bloody riots across the country. It was difficult for the new Kingdom to
resist the economic 'firepower' of stronger competing States. Yet, as mentioned
earlier, Italy waited until 1909 to pass a unified law on the fight against
exports. Why?
This remains one of the most debated aspects. Ms Smalcerz, first of all, recalled the attempts that followed one another over the years in Parliament. Since the mid-1860s, a 'Commission for the conservation law of art and antiquities' had been established at the Ministry of Education (competent at the time). In 1872, also following the (completely legal) sale of the Madonna Conestabile from Perugia to the Hermitage (an episode that had great prominence in the press and also in politics), Minister Cesare Correnti presented a draft law in Parliament for the conservation and protection, which was however rejected by a large majority in the Senate; another attempt was made in 1875 by Ruggiero Bonghi, successor of Correnti, but again rejected; a new draft was presented in 1877 by Michele Coppino with the same unsuccessful outcome. The following year it was the turn of Francesco De Sanctis (as you can see, ministers were often changed) to present a further project, which was also rejected in 1878. And we could go on with Coppino's attempts again (1886 and 1888), Pasquale Villari (1892), Ferdinando Martini (1892) and Nicolò Gallo (1898 and 1900), all, invariably, rejected. The real reason for the dispute was laying in the contrast between the absolute protection of private property (the Italian state was born liberal) and the prevalence of a general interest that limited it by law. So far everything is known.
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| Raphael, Conestabile Madonna, about 1504 circa, Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum Source: https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/29672/ |
Between antique and modern
I would very much like to comment on the
aspects related to the perception of the Pacca edict before and after the
unitary state. In particular, I have the impression that the authoress
overestimated the importance of interventions such as those of Cavalcaselle in 1862-63 at the Minister of
Public Education (it must be remembered that his reports were mainly aimed at
getting hired by the Ministry, and therefore I am not surprised that they have
not been translated into bills) or by Morelli in his only intervention in Parliament on July
19, 1862. The impression is that the two leading figures who today represent
the symbol of Italian connoisseurship were somewhat reticent to speak of the
Pacca edict, an expression of the legislative policy of the Papal State, which
they had fought personally in previous years.
However, I feel important to spend a few more
words on the choice Italy made to keep pre-existing legislation in force. That grandfathering
decision, in my view, can help explain the behaviour of antiquarians. The birth
of 'modern' and liberal Italy coincided in fact with the recourse, in terms of
protection, to an 'ancient' legislation, precisely that of Cardinal Pacca,
issued in 1820, and similar provisions of the States of ancient regime,
limiting the 'sacredness' of private property. While I cannot prove it, I feel
that those who belonged to the world of the art trade may have been deeply
disappointed. Incidentally, it should be remembered, as Emiliani amply pointed out in 1978, that the only state that had not issued
regulatory provisions on the matter was the Kingdom of Savoy-Sardinia, whose
bureaucratic machine was the founding nucleus of united Italy.
Possibly, many operators in the art market saw the lack of action by the legislator as a justification and self-absolution for the practice of smuggling. If in fact we 'overlook' the existence of a general interest that justified it, the Pacca edict (which provided for the payment of a 20% duty in case of granting an export permit) mainly aimed at filling the empty coffers of the Treasury through the application of a system of duties [4]. As in many situations (even today) of tax evasion, the failure to comply with tax obligations was essentially seen by taxpayers as a form of conscientious objection and perhaps allowed those who practiced it to receive a tacit solidarity from their associates.
A comprehensive anaysis
Ms Smalcerz made an overall analysis of the
phenomenon of smuggling which, starting from archival data, examined its
political and psycho-sociological implications. The goal, without a doubt, is
ambitious; the result - I dare say – may have not always equally convincing. I'm afraid I can't agree, for example, on statements such as: “In certain circumstances and under certain conditions, works of art became became social agents” (p. 24). In this regard,
incorporating previous theories, Ms Smalcerz introduced the term 'actants'
which indicates the forces that come into play in a social process, regardless
of whether they were physical persons or objects. The artworks were therefore
actants. “The aura of human ingenuity of the divine talents of venerated artists such as Raphael or Michelangelo that emanated from these artworks was seductive and compelling - a mental construct that was possibly even more powerful than the visual qualities of the actual works” (p. 100). In essence, the author referred, modifying its meaning, to the counter-reform debate on the 'power of
images'. Authors such as Paleotti argued the need for paintings to have certain
visual contents because their ultimate goal was to 'docere, movere et delectare' (teach, move and delight). In Ms. Smalcerz’s
interpretation, the power of the images no longer referred (only) to the formal
qualities of the work, but proved irresistible, so irresistible that it pushed
collectors to break the law, because it incorporated the qualities that had
become legend of those who made them. This whole mechanism, certainly
suggestive, has, in my opinion, a single weak point: it eliminates free will
and, ultimately, individual responsibility for behaviour. In essence, it
becomes a theoretical model that absolves, forgetting that individuals may always
ethically choose what to opt for (and the comparison between Eastlake, who stopped
when he did not have the possibility to legally acquire a work, and Bode, who did
not do so, is educational). In this regard, I allow myself to digress and
recall the story of Filippo De Ferrari (1850-1917), son of Raffaele, Duke of
Galliera, one of the richest men in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century; Filippo
was one of the most famous stamp collectors in history, yet he remained
involved in events (carefully covered up) of kleptomania [5]. Now, there is no
doubt that Filippo had some problems, but it is hard to speak of a 'power of
stamps', in terms of active participation in the elaboration of the desire by
the collector.
Another frankly questionable aspect is the
application, in the final chapter, of the theory of social networks to the case
of smuggling practices of the last decades of the nineteenth century. I had the
opportunity to read something similar (with the application of the same,
identical terminology) in Elisa Goudriaan, Florentine
Patricians and Their Networks. Structures Behind the Cultural Success and the
Political Representation of the Medici Court (1600-1660) and the impression, once again, is
that this is the insertion of an artificial superstructure. Let's be clear: we
are all perfectly aware of the importance of studying the social frameworks and
learning about the protagonists of the story, but applying a pre-established
model risks, in my personal opinion, produces stereotypes and goes against a
type of Haskellian teaching (see his Patrons and Painters) in which the description of social events testifies first of all to
their uniqueness, so that extreme caution must be exercised on how to include
them into a more general framework.
NOTES
[2] The most striking response to the 'Great Exodus' was the birth of the National Art Collections Fund (now Art Fund) at the beginning of the twentieth century, a private initiative that allowed the establishment of a fund aimed at the acquisition - from private individuals to English museums - of artworks that otherwise would risk be expatriated. The first example of a 'saved' painting thanks to this fund was the very famous Venus Rokeby by Diego Velázquez. Lady Christiana Herringham played a fundamental, if forgotten, role in the entire operation.
[3] On Eastlake see S. Avery-Quash, Julie Sheldon, Art for the Nation. The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World and, forthcoming, S. Avery-Quash, G. Mazzaferro, Michelangelo Gualandi (1793-1887): An Unofficial 'Traveling Agent' for Sir Charles Eastlake In "Journal of the History of Collections", with the newly rediscovered correspondence between the director of the National Gallery and the Bolognese merchant and scholar Michelangelo Gualandi between 1855 and 1865.
[4] The same can probably be said of the choice to suspend the abolition of fidecommissions for the main Roman private galleries in 1871, after the conquest of Rome. To the contrary, those fidecommissions had already been abolished in 1866 at the national level.
[5] On the De Ferrari family see AA.VV. I Duchi di Galliera. Alta finanza, arte e filantropia tra Genova e l’Europa nell’Ottocento (The Dukes of Galliera. High finance, art and philanthropy between Genoa and Europe in the nineteenth century), Genoa, Marietti, 1991.
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